Depicting the head and shoulders of a woman, The Laundress c.1901 is an early painting by George Lambert, completed the year after he departed for Europe upon receiving the first New South Wales Travelling Scholarship. Mrs Chalmers-Wright, a former owner of the painting, advised the National Gallery of Australia in 1970 that, until it was subsequently obscured by a backing board, the verso of The Laundress had shown the inscription: 'Painted in a tavern, Paris 1900'.¹ As Anne Gray has pointed out, Lambert did not arrive in Paris until 1901.² If the painting was indeed painted in Paris, then the nearest correct date must be 1901.

Endnotes

1. Mrs Chalmers-Wright, letter to NGA,  dated 1970, NGA file 71/1 464, 1.
2. Anne Gray, George Lambert 1873–1930 Catalogue Raisonne, Bonamy Press, Canberra, 1996, p.11.